Chapter 13

Prism

“My entire life,I’ve been different,” I said, deciding to just tell him. It was shitty timing. Of all the moments I could decide to split myself open, it had to be now? In some rando parking lot right before I had to face the cops. Right before my life was uprooted and we moved to a new home.

But would there ever really be a good time?

Maybe being in his lap gave me a sense of security. Maybe, even though I shouldn’t, I hoped he’d be an exception in a sea of the same. Or perhaps I was just tired. Tired of trying to protect and explain myself.

Telling him would chase him off faster than anything else, and at this point, if I didn’t get rid of him lickety-split, all my pieces would rearrange around him, and when he left, I’d collapse. It was what scared me most. I didn’t want to go back to that dark place. The small preview I had the night in jail was a harsh reminder.

Better to get it over with. Chase him off, deal with the cops, and then I could adjust to life in the new townhouse. At least I’d have my own room.

“Different how?” he asked, stroking my hair again.

It was hard to think when he did that because I’d rather feel. It seemed the things I didn’t want to feel severely outnumbered the things I did, so when I found one, I tended to fixate on it. How easy it would be to fixate on Arsen. Rubbing my cheek against his shoulder, I sighed.

“You like my shirt?” he asked, his voice a low rumble near my head.

“Mm,” I hummed. “It’s soft.”

“That’s why I wore it. You like soft things. Was hoping you’d want to touch me.”

“You wore this for me?” I asked, trailing my fingers over the sleeve. He seemed to like the touch because he shifted a bit, pushing more of his arm out but keeping his hand on me. I could get used to this. To him.

No. Get on with it.

“Do you have sensory issues?” he asked.

My fingers stopped stroking the cotton shirt, hand falling near his wrist. “Yeah, I guess. That’s what most people would say.”

“What would you say?”

“That I have very strong likes and dislikes.”

He made a sound. Was it amusement? “Okay, so tell me what you do and do not like.”

“I don’t like sticky stuff. It makes me panic… like I can’t get away and it makes it hard to breathe. And that fake leather material.” I shuddered, thinking about the seats in the back of the police car. “It’s smooth but tacky like it’s trying to trick you. Pretends to be smooth, but when you touch it, you get stuck. Texture is okay but not aggressive texture. Not the scratchy kind. It makes me feel like my insides are screaming. It’s so loud, but no one else can hear the screams.”

“But you like soft stuff,” he said. “Like my shirt.”

“Yeah. I like soft stuff. Velvet. Silk. Real leather is good, like these seats,” I mentioned, glancing at the driver’s seat he was no longer in.

“How about my bracelets?”

It was an odd question, and I looked down. I hadn’t realized, but my fingers were tangled in the straps and cords fastened around his wrists. One in particular was leather, the underside buttery soft and the edges a little frayed like it’d been cut from something larger. It was sort of like a cuff, the way it was fastened together with a loop on the end of the strap that slipped over what looked like a hammered piece of silver metal. The metal was the size of a coin and concave. The dip in the center fascinated me, and I was rubbing my thumb over it again and again while my other fingers played with the other cords.

Self-conscious, I stalled my fingers, thumb lifting.

His other hand covered mine, pushing it back to his wrist. “Keep going.”

“So anyway, yeah,” I said. “I have unusual responses to stimuli. Especially sound.”

“Sound?”

“Yeah, your favorite thing is sort of my kryptonite.”

“Explain.”

My fingers tangled in the leather strap, my thumb automatically tapping against the metal button. One, two, three. One, two, three.

“I have misophonia,” I confessed. “It’s basically a disorder in which certain sounds trigger an unreasonable emotional and even physiological response.”

Since I was sitting in his lap, I felt his body tense.

“You have misophonia?”

This time, it was me who tensed, but I went so taut I started to shake. “It’s a real thing.” I defended. “My doctor said so.”

“Of course it is,” he said, not an ounce of disbelief in his voice.

Astonishment had me jolting back so far that the only part of me that touched him was the part of my ass still in his lap. “You’ve heard of misophonia?”

He half smiled. “Sound is sort of my thing.”

“But this is…”

“A brain disorder.”

“H-how do you know that?” I asked, doubt crowding my chest and making it ache. Was this some kind of joke? Because if so, it was cruel. And I would know because cruelty was not something new to me.

To pretend to accept something most people said was just an excuse for bad behavior, to try and lure me into some false sense of trust…

“I took a psychology of sound class.”

My eyes narrowed. “Westbrook doesn’t have that class.”

“I know that. But they do have general psych, and when I took it, the professor touched on how sound affects people, and it made me curious. So I found an online lecture about it and listened to it.”

“Why?”

“Sound is my thing. You know that. Thought it was interesting. The lecture went over a few disorders like hyperacusis and phonophobia. Misophonia was also talked about.”

“Did they mention tinnitus?” I asked, fidgeting with the seam of the cargo pocket on the side of my joggers.

“Do you have that too?”

I nodded.

“Hey.” His voice was gentle. Soothing. So much so that tears pooled in my eyes, and I started to blink rapidly.

His hands were warm and large. The way they whispered over my cheeks when he cupped my face made goose bumps rush along my arms. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I just continued picking at the seam while blinking and telling myself not to cry.

It was hard to breathe. My lungs were tight as if they’d forgotten how to work. It only made my eyes burn more.

“Matthew, sweetheart.”

I shook my head adamantly. “No. That’s four. It’s supposed to be three.”

His thumb stroked over my cheek. “Princess.”

“I’m not a girl,” I uttered, still completely irritated even if that was one of the three names he called me.

“If you were, I wouldn’t want you in my lap.” The teasing tone coupled with his gentle hands made me look up.

His smile inspired one from me, and for a few heartbeats, we sat there smiling at each other. He was really beautiful. So many things I would never be. I felt like a moth drawn toward a flame. Even knowing how dangerous he was, I couldn’t force myself away, too riveted by his warmth.

“I know you aren’t a girl,” he murmured, stroking my cheek again. “But there’s something so precious about you. Something so valuable. And even though you’re like six feet tall and cut with muscle, there’s also fragility. It makes me want to take care of you.”

I wanted to be angry that he called me fragile. I wanted to argue and deny. But deep down, I knew he was right. And deep down, it was sort of nice that someone saw it… that they didn’t seem put off by it.

“That doesn’t, ah, turn you off?”

The sound he made was so like amusement that I had to look up to see if I’d heard right. His onyx eyes were sparkling with emotion that made butterflies flutter in my stomach. “Princess, there is not one thing about you that turns me off.”

I slid back into his lap, turning again so I was facing away from him but with my cheek on his shoulder. A lump formed in my throat when he wrapped his arm around me and positioned his wrist so I had access to the bracelets.

“So tinnitus. That’s ringing in the ears, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s pretty much constant, but sometimes it’s less noticeable.”

“Like when you’re wearing AirPods and listening to ASMR?”

“Or music. I only listen to ASMR when I’m anxious or overstimulated.”

“What’s your favorite song?”

This conversation was unlike others because it was just that, a conversation. I was telling him the reasons I was so unfitting, but it wasn’t the only dialogue. It was just part of something bigger… something that felt a lot like him trying to know me. As if my favorite song was just as important as my disabilities. Like he didn’t define me just by that one thing.

It overwhelmed me so much that I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

He waited a while, then said, “Can’t say I have a favorite. Not an original anyway. I’m kinda obsessed with mixing tracks to make something new.”

“It gets worse,” I said. “The ringing when I’m stressed out.”

“Are you stressed out right now?”

“I should be.”

“But you aren’t?”

I didn’t answer that either, instead finding myself tangling my fingers in his bracelets and rubbing my thumb against the concave metal coin.

“So misophonia triggers an abnormal response to certain sounds. What’s the response for you?”

“Anger,” I replied. “Fight-or-flight basically takes over, and I cannot sit still. I feel like I have to get away. A lot of times, I can’t get away, and that’s where the fight comes in…”

“Ah, like when you clobbered that cop.”

“I used to get in so many fights,” I confessed, counting the bracelets by threes. “I got in trouble a lot. Probably would have ended up in juvie if it weren’t for Ben.”

“Ben…”

“Kruger.”

“Yeah, Jess calls him that,” he replied.

“It’s his first name,” I told him even though he already knew. “I transferred into his class when I was seven. It was my third school that year. My gram said if this one didn’t work, she was going to hire a tutor for homeschool.”

“Your gram?”

“Yeah. My grandma raised me. She’s the best.”

“What happened to your parents?”

The mention of those people made me withdraw my hands from the bracelets and tuck them into my chest. My foot started bouncing. One, two, three. One, two, three.

“They said I was bad.”

He’s nothing but a mistake. An abomination to my name! The voice echoed through my head, wrapping around the dull ringing and amplifying it. You need to think about what you’ve done. Bad boys get punished.

The echo of my begging fell on deaf ears. The promises to be better were never good enough. I recoiled against the sound of my rubber soles squeaking over the polished hardwood as I was dragged?—

“Matthew!”

The world that existed outside of my mind snapped back into focus, releasing me from the past. I became very aware that I was trembling, and I squinted against the abnormally bright sunlight streaming through the window. The sound of my teeth clattering annoyed me, and I scrambled for the AirPods, unable to find the one Arsen set aside.

Then it was there, the familiar shape, size, and texture of the earbud sliding into my ear. The other was pushed more firmly inside, and a hand searched my pockets.

His curse was muffled against the ringing in my ears and my overwhelmed mind, and I watched him fumble with my phone.

I watched his lips moving, knew he was talking to me. I was usually good at reading lips. I mean, I wore AirPods so much that learning to do so was practically automatic. But today, I focused on the silver rings circling his lower lip and wondered why there wasn’t a third.

One of the AirPods was ripped away, and the rush of the air against my ear canal was uncomfortable. The sound of the running engine fought against the ringing.

“Relax, relax, relax.”The word whispered right against my ear. My eyes rolled a little, and I leaned into the sound. “Relax, relax, relax.” The faint brush of his lips against my earlobe slowed my heart. “You’re a good boy. So good for me. Good boy.”

I heard myself whimper. “Good.”

“Yes. Good. Good. Good. My good boy. I’m so proud of you.”

At some point, I’d turned and was now straddling Arsen’s lap. My knees were on either side of his legs, and as the worst of the anxiety started to ebb, he wrapped his hands around my lower back and pulled my body until ours were flush. The car seat made it cramped, but I didn’t mind it because it forced us closer together.

His voice stayed in my ear, whispering words of encouragement and praise and making tingles race over my scalp as I practically hummed with pleasure. It was like being massaged without anyone using their hands. A satisfying loosening inside me, relief so good that my body went boneless.

Looping my hands around his neck, I hugged myself to him, my arms jamming themselves beneath his shoulders and forcing him out of the seat back. He adjusted without complaint, pushing his hand beneath my shirt and rubbing my back as he continued to whisper.

A lone tear dripped from the corner of my eye, soaked up instantly by the softness of his shirt. The way the cotton eagerly absorbed my sorrow pierced me like an arrow that no one else could see, an arrow he didn’t even know he fired.

How willing this man was to soak up everything. It scared me.

I pushed out of his neck, my body shaking a bit as I forced it out of hiding. I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes, too afraid of what I would see, but I sat back so we were face to face.

“You did so good, baby,” he said, voice just above a whisper. “You told me a lot. I know it was hard. I’m proud of you.”

I glanced at him, then away. “You’re proud?”

“So proud.” He praised me, entire back lifting off the seat to lean in and kiss the corner of my mouth. “Thank you for telling me. For trusting me.” Every word he spoke was another brush at the corner of my lips.

I wanted to turn my head to kiss him completely and taste those sweet words on his tongue. Denying myself, I said, “I told you so you’d run away.”

“I’m proud of you for protecting yourself.”

More praise. I am melting.

“But I’m not running anywhere.” His words sounded a lot like a promise. “Not without you.”

I turned my head then, our lips meeting as I tumbled deep into his web. With every stroke of his tongue, he bound me tighter until it felt like my heart was stitched to his.

Until there was no hope at all for me to untangle.

And so the truth I used to push him away only tugged me closer, only made it harder for my heart not to love him. Maybe that would have been okay if everything I’d told him had been a complete picture of what he was getting.

I wondered if he’d still be proud of me—if he would still want me—if he knew the stuff I told him just barely scratched the surface.